The Mother

by Yvvette Edwards

  Other members of the public file into the seats behind us. Two of Ryan’s friends have come along. They are young, as he was, tall boys masquerading as men, unsure how to behave in this formal space. I have fed and watered them for years, lovely boys, bright, polite. Luke leans over from the row behind, hugs me, cannot find words, just shakes his head and hugs me hard again, then composes himself, gets himself under control, sits down. The boy with him is Ricardo, who waits his turn patiently, then hugs me as well. The rows fill up behind us. I don’t recognize anyone else, a number of individuals who appear to be on their own, an elderly couple dressed up as if attending an evening at the theater, and a group of four young girls who could be students of some kind or might equally well have known my son. I turn around and focus on the courtroom below us.

  He is bigger than the last time I saw him, bulkier. Prison food must agree with him or maybe stodge agrees with him, and I don’t know why I’m calling prison food stodge when for all I know he’s probably eating a better-balanced diet than Lloydie and Ryan and I ever did. And anyway, that bulk isn’t fat. The extra weight looks like muscle, solid, as if he has been working out nonstop every day and eating steroids. His face is fuller and the fullness of his cheeks makes him look younger, but there is nothing childish about the way he holds himself or the expression on his face. Tyson Manley.

  Ryan went through a growth spurt that started when he was fourteen. It began one day out of the blue and just didn’t stop. Over two years he went from five foot two inches to five eleven. We had to replace his wardrobe about three times. I don’t know if his growth spurt had ended, will never know the exact height my son would have achieved as a man, the heights. His was the growth particular to adolescent boys, as if he’d simply been stretched on a rack, a lengthening that left him thin and gangly, slightly awkward, as if his limbs were too much, too long, as if he wasn’t quite used yet to occupying more space.

  Tyson Manley is not like that. He fully inhabits his frame. His body language suggests he is completely in control of every limb, every muscle, almost in command of the space around him. It is the body language of an older man, one who is established and doing well, confident and yet relaxed, and this is reinforced by the suit he wears, brown, expensive, designer, perfectly coordinated with the colors of his shirt and flamboyant tie. It unsettles me, this juxtaposition of manhood and his boyish face. He has an old scar running from the left corner of his mouth that stops mere millimeters from his eye, and it emphasizes the overall impression of a boy who means business.

  He is sitting in a chair on the other side of a glass wall, between two people who look like officers of the court, but who I know from Nipa are actually employed by the prison service. His seat is at one end of the courtroom directly opposite the judge’s bench on the other, and though the judge has not yet entered, Tyson Manley stares so fixedly in that direction you would think the judge was sitting there speaking to him about something totally engrossing. And although the court is filling up, with our legal team and his legal team and several clerks and a number of other people whose function I have not yet determined, despite the chatter and movement and noise, he stares ahead as if it is all beneath him, and as usual I find it unnerving. I have to say that this single quality in him is enough to convince me he did it, is guilty, because he has something in his aura of the type of person who could kill someone at six thirty, stroll home, have dinner and a hot bath, followed by an early night of unbroken sleep. That’s what makes me think he’s done it, his aura, and of course the fact he knows the girl without a proper name; I just don’t know why. Understanding has been my problem from the start. How is it possible for my son to have been doing all the right things, that as parents, Lloydie and I, we were doing all the right things, and yet still Ryan is dead? This is the crux of my difficulty, the reason why, unlike my husband, I have to be here. I pray he does take the stand. I want to hear from his own mouth why he did this. I know it is his prerogative to speak or remain silent, but I need him to explain so I can properly understand. Perhaps if I can understand, I can come to terms with it, because so far I have not; I have not come to terms with the fact that I will never see or speak to or hold my son again. I can’t get my head around how this could have happened.

  Ms. Manley hasn’t arrived yet though it is now just after ten. I’d feel more relaxed if she were here already. It would be over then, she could sit down and we could all move forward. Instead I am awaiting her arrival with trepidation. I am almost as obsessed with her as I am with her son. What kind of mother would turn up late to her son’s murder trial? The answer is obvious; the kind of mother whose son could commit murder in the first place. I force myself to focus on the activity in the courtroom below. The public gallery is elevated above the courtroom and the view from where I sit is a good one. I am side on to Tyson Manley, which means I can study him throughout without his noticing; no expression or response shall escape me. I am also opposite the jury box, so I will be able to monitor the impact of the evidence on the jurors once the trial gets going. And I can see the witness stand and the judge’s bench clearly.

  The clerk who sits at the table in front of the bench gets up and walks over to the adjacent doorway and loudly says, “Court rise! All persons having any business with the court draw near and give your attendance. God save the Queen.”

  And everyone begins to stand, including the officers behind the glass with Tyson Manley, till everyone is standing except him, and only as the judge actually enters the courtroom does he rise slowly, as if bored with the proceedings already, and when the judge sits down, everyone else’s cue to sit down, as with standing, he is the last to take his seat. It is deliberate and annoying, being difficult simply for the heck of it, and I wonder what he would have been like as a pupil at school, what it would have felt like being a teacher trying to teach him, or a mum.

  Lorna whispers, “Talk about a whitewash.”

  I look around. Everyone in the courtroom with a part to play in this trial is white, apart from the defendant and Henry and the two prison guards. It’s the kind of detail my sister never misses and that I rarely notice till she points it out. She’s a charge nurse, on leave from work till this trial is over, and when people talk about slack disengaged nurses working in the National Health Service I know they’ve never met her. She is always awake, always aware of what’s going on around her, taking in the fine detail. Despite the fact we grew up together, I’ve often thought there is little middle ground in our outlook, though it always fascinated me that her Leah and my Ryan were so similar to each other, you would have thought they’d been raised in the same household. People often mistook them for siblings.

  “He’s going to be tried by a jury of his peers,” I say.

  “Looking at this room, that’s lucky for him,” Lorna says.

  I do not answer, because luck is not what I wish for Tyson Manley.

  She whispers, “Here they come. Let’s take a look at these peers.”

  They file into the courtroom below us looking not like jurors but like people at a bus stop on a warm day, holding their bags and coats, and in some cases, hats and scarves. They seem alert, excited even, eagerly glancing around the courtroom, taking everyone and everything in. There are more than twelve, more like twenty of them.

  “I guess they bring in more than they need in case some are excused,” Lorna whispers.

  They are called up one by one. Each has their name read out to the court. The first three are white women who take their seats in the jury box. The fourth is an Asian man. He enters a whispered discussion with the judge and subsequently leaves court with his rucksack and jacket. The next is a young black woman who doesn’t look much older than twenty. I can’t decide, don’t know if a black or white person is better at determining innocence or guilt, have no idea whether young and idealistic is better than a middle-aged mum who maybe will identify with me, or who might, on account of her teenaged son, identify with Tyson Manley. It is impossible to call
.

  Two white men follow. Then two more white women, a young Asian man, and an elderly black gentleman who looks bemused to find himself in these surroundings. A young white guy is next to whisper to the judge, and whatever he says is resolvable because he takes his seat in the box shortly after. Finally a white female pensioner who has nothing to whisper sits down in the twelfth seat. The jury of Tyson Manley’s peers consists of five men, seven women. Of the men, one is the elderly black man, the other is the young Asian guy. Of the seven women, one is black. This is London, one of the most diverse cities in the world, yet of the twelve peers, only three of them are people of color.

  I am anticipating Lorna’s breath in my ear, so when it comes, I am not surprised. “Do they look like the random selection of a dozen people from your road?”

  I do not answer, but the honest answer would be, they don’t.

  The judge temporarily dismisses the jury and the legal arguments begin. Quigg wants to present all of Tyson Manley’s previous charges and convictions to the jury. She says they are relevant to the charges against him and recent, though it seems a given to me that his offenses—the full murky list of which I have seen—would be recent because he’s only just turned seventeen. Guy St. Clare, defense counsel, opposes this. He says the admission of the previous convictions would be prejudicial and that it would be highly unfair for charges of which Mr. Manley has been exonerated to be presented in evidence against him. It is hard to guess St. Clare’s age, he could be anywhere in his late fifties or sixties or early seventies even. His eyelids are saggy and hooded in a way that reminds me of a hawk, and when he speaks he leans slightly forward, not a lot, just enough to reinforce that impression, and his face is so red that for some reason port comes to mind and I wonder if he drinks a lot of it, imagine he does. He seems like the sort that might be found in the drawing room passed out, cravat askew, empty decanter within arm’s reach on the floor beside him.

  They agree that only the convictions relevant to the charges the defendant faces will be admitted. There is no need for the jury to be privy to the rest.

  St. Clare wishes to submit an application for the CCTV footage of the person in a monogrammed brown sweat top to be removed from the jury bundle. He says it is not conclusive that the image is in fact of the defendant at all and that to present it to the jury as if it were could be misleading. Quigg respects the view of her learned friend. She agrees the images are not conclusive of identity and is happy for the jury to have a directive from the judge advising them of this. I am surprised at how cordial these legal arguments are. Apart from last Friday, when I visited with Nipa, I have never been in a courtroom before in my life, not even for a civil matter like debt or nonpayment of council tax, and there is something of a theatrical feel about it, like watching a period drama; the polished wood and paneling of the walls, the Victorian green leather and upholstery, the wigs and gowns and collars, the deference. I was expecting something more aggressive, I think, like the legal bloodletting I’ve seen in films, verbal warring, the cut and thrust of jibes. Instead I’m in a scene straight out of Pride and Prejudice and it feels surreal.

  The jury is called back in and the judge directs the defendant to rise, which he does with his customary slowness, then he watches as his twelve peers are sworn in. The judge tells the jury that Tyson Manley stands charged with the murder of Ryan Williams. Then Quigg introduces herself and St. Clare to the jury and begins telling them the facts of this case.

  “Ryan Williams was a sixteen-year-old boy who was predicted to do well in the GCSE exams he had been due to sit in May of this year. He lived with both his parents. He had never been in trouble with the police, though you will hear that Ryan Williams was in possession of a knife on the day he was murdered. He was a popular and highly respected pupil at school and a keen sportsman. His favorite sport was football.

  “On Wednesday, March 18, Ryan went directly from school, which ended at three twenty-five p.m., to football training, which was held at the Sports Ground. Football training lasted two hours, from four o’clock till six p.m. At six p.m. when training had ended, he collected his school uniform and bag, exchanged the football boots on his feet for his trainers, left the Sports Ground with a group of other young boys his age, and they walked to HFC, a chicken and chip shop on the high street nearby. While at HFC, Ryan realized he had left his football boots in the changing room at the Sports Ground. He bought himself a meal of eight hot wings and chips and separated from his friends outside the shop. The other boys continued their journeys home while Ryan walked back to the Sports Ground to retrieve his boots.”

  I feel Lorna’s hand in my lap. She finds mine. Holds it.

  “On the way back into the Sports Ground, Ryan met Kwame Johnson, the football coach who had led the training session. Mr. Johnson was on his way out of the Sports Ground, carrying balls and equipment to his car. He asked Ryan if he wanted a lift home and Ryan said no. He had no need of a lift as it was only a short distance from his home.

  “As he exited the Sports Ground, Mr. Johnson passed an individual he believed to be the defendant, Tyson Manley, on the street. Although he continued to his car, where he loaded the equipment, Mr. Johnson then went back to the Sports Ground to make sure everything was okay.

  “At the entrance, a woman who had been jogging in the park, Nadine Forrester, literally ran into him. She shouted words to the effect that someone had been stabbed. Mr. Johnson ran into the Sports Ground, where he discovered Ryan Williams lying on the pathway in a pool of blood. He checked for breathing and on finding no signs of life, carried out CPR till the paramedics arrived and pronounced Ryan Williams dead at the scene.

  “You will see in your jury bundle, exhibit one, on page three, a map of the Sports Ground and the surrounding area. It gives you an idea of the geography but does not give much detail. If you go to page four, you will see a more detailed map of the Sports Ground. It shows the football pitches, the changing room, the entrance to the park at the top of the page slightly to the right of the center. You can see where Mr. Johnson’s car was parked outside the Sports Ground on the adjacent high street, and it is marked ‘number one.’ You can see the spot, marked ‘number two,’ at which Ryan Williams was stabbed and where he subsequently collapsed and died.

  “If you go to page seven, you will see images of the stab wounds Ryan Williams sustained, not actual photographs but body graphics that will help you understand the extent of the injuries. On the back body image you will see there are four incised wounds. One of these is labeled ‘three’ and is in the middle upper left back region. That incision wound punctured the lung, causing it to fill with blood and subsequently resulted in loss of life . . .”

  I am hyperventilating. Though I am gulping in air, I cannot breathe. It feels as though no oxygen is entering my lungs despite the fact that I can hear myself sucking it in, gasping.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, . . .” Lorna is saying. “You need to slow down, take a deep breath in, hold it, let it out. And another, deep in, hold it . . .”

  I have attracted the attention of the jury, the legal teams, the judge; they all look up at the gallery.

  Nipa asks, “Do you want to go outside?”

  I shake my head, inhale deeply, feel oxygen return to my body. I am angry with myself, not for not coping, but for not coping in front of Tyson Manley. I feel like he has already taken so much from me and truly did not want to give him this in addition, my vulnerability, the confirmation that however this trial ends he has already won, already made it nigh on impossible for me to ever breathe normally again. But when I look at him, wondering if he’s enjoying this scene, to see if he’s snickering and smirking, he is doing neither. His attention is fixed on the judge as before, as if he is oblivious to everything, including me.

  “She’s okay,” Lorna says to Nipa.

  The judge says, “Counsel, might I suggest you continue with your opening statement?”

  “Thank you, My Lord. I shall endeavor to be a
s brief as possible. Members of the jury, when the police arrived at the scene, Mr. Johnson, the football coach, told them he had seen Tyson Manley entering the Sports Ground as he was leaving it. They went to Mr. Manley’s parental home, where he resides with his mother and younger brother, were unable to locate him there, and kept his home under surveillance throughout the night.

  “The following morning, on March 19, Mr. Manley arrived home freshly bathed and wearing newly purchased clothing. He told the officers he had been at the home of his girlfriend, Sweetie Nelson, from the previous afternoon till that morning. If you look at page three of jury bundle exhibit two, you will see itemized calls made from Ryan Williams’s mobile phone—telephone one—to telephone two of various dates and durations up to and including Wednesday, March 18, the date on which he was murdered. Telephone two is the mobile phone belonging to Sweetie Nelson. If you turn to page four, you will see itemized calls made from Sweetie Nelson’s phone to Ryan Williams’s mobile phone, of various dates and durations, the last of which occurred two days prior to the murder. When questioned by police, Sweetie Nelson provided a statement corroborating Mr. Manley’s assertion that for the period during which Ryan Williams was killed, Mr. Manley was at her home with her and that he did not leave her home till eight a.m. the following day. Tyson Manley also made a prepared statement to the police, effectively a blanket denial of any knowledge of or involvement in the murder of Ryan Williams. Subsequently, Mr. Manley was arrested and arraigned on the charge of murder.

  “Before you can convict, there are three things you have to be sure of. The first is that Tyson Manley, the defendant in this case, did a deliberate and unlawful act. You have to be sure that at the time of committing the act, the defendant intended really serious injury. You also have to be sure that the act resulted in the death of Ryan Williams. These you will decide once you have heard all the evidence in this case. Thank you.”